CALL FOR PAPERS: Special Issue of the Journal of Chinese Cinemas: Sound and Music in Chinese Cinemas
Sound has recently emerged as a vibrant field of inquiry in film studies. It provides an important starting point for the development of new analytic frameworks, including models of reception, historiographic perspectives, and theoretical and practical understandings of cinematic technology and representation. In the area of Chinese cinema, research on the intersections of film and music by scholars such as Andrew Jones, Sue Touhy, and Zhang Zhen has already made a firm case for the importance of understanding cinema as an inter-textual, multi-sensory medium, while also demonstrating how historical changes in sound technology have profoundly shaped the cinematic experience. In reviving the field of opera studies, Judith Zeitlin and others have opened up new perspectives on Chinese cinema’s imbrication in traditions of performance and changing idioms of live musical drama; such perspectives move beyond previous studies that have focused primarily on opera’s communication of political and national ideologies. This growing body of research attests to the importance of music in mapping film’s relationship with other cultural forms, and suggests future directions for the study of sound technology’s role in the development of Chinese cinema.
This special issue of the Journal of Chinese Cinemas will bring together new sound-related topics and emerging scholarship. The editors, Jean Ma and Matthew Johnson, would like to invite abstract submissions of 250-300 words for articles related to the special issue theme of “Sound and Music in Chinese Cinemas.”
Comparative, cross-regional, and interdisciplinary approaches are welcome. Our goal is to gather a diverse range of scholarly and practitioner views which will provide a coherent “map” of this theme by including perspectives drawn from studies of cultural texts, performance, technology, history, and various points along the production/exhibition/reception continuum.
The abstract should include: * Your name, email address, institution, and mailing address. * A description of an innovative approach to the study of sound and music in Chinese cinemas. Possible topics may include (but are certainly not limited to): cross-medial and inter-medial investigations of film sound and music; the introduction of popular music and performance forms (e.g. vaudeville, cabaret jazz, opera) to a cinematic context; histories of cinematic sound technology; sound and genre; sound authorship and auteurship; interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to sound and music; historical studies of colonial and global (e.g. Cold War) geopolitics, economies, and “flows,” and the interplay between these forces and sound-related cinematic spectacle and practices.
Deadline for abstract submissions: 30 June 2012 Acceptance notice: 31 July 2012 Deadline for paper (6000-8000 words) submission: 31 October 2012 Anticipated publication date: Summer 2013
Abstract submissions (as MSWord documents by email attachment) to both: Jean Ma (Stanford University): jeanma@stanford.edu Matthew Johnson (Grinnell College): johnsonm@grinnell.edu
Contact for journal information: Song Hwee Lim (Editor, Journal of Chinese Cinemas): S.H.Lim@exeter.ac.uk
Website for paper format: See Notes for Contributors (.pdf file) at www.intellectbooks.co.uk